


Tuesdays

by until_the_earth_is_free



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angry Erik, Angst and Humor, Enemies to Lovers, First Meetings, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Misunderstandings, Therapy, Waiting Rooms, this makes it sound so much more angsty than it is i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-08 19:23:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5510090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/until_the_earth_is_free/pseuds/until_the_earth_is_free
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik and Charles meet in their respective therapists' waiting room.  They do not immediately hit it off.</p><p>[feat. mood disorder Erik and psychotic Charles]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So basically all of the mental stuff in this fic is based on the author's Real Life Experience TM, but if you think something was handled indecently or inaccurately, please let me know. I have made Erik and Charles' actual diagnoses very vague in this fic, but I am thinking that Erik has BPD and depression, and Charles has a psychotic disorder that manifests mainly in paranoid delusions but also in tactile hallucinations sometimes.
> 
> WARNINGS: a big overall warning for mental illness and psychiatric care (this isn't a very heavy fic, but it does touch on heavy topics, you know?), surveillance delusions, insect-related hallucinations, implied/referenced self harm, recreational alcohol

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Tuesday 8th March_

 

 

Charles Xavier had a schedule.

At seven every morning, he woke up, got dressed, and made himself two slices of toast, which he ate on the fifteen minute walk to his university office. When he had a morning class to teach, he bought himself a cup of cheap coffee from the genetics department staff room. When he didn't have to teach until the afternoon, he spent the time before lunch preparing for lessons and marking his students' papers.

On Fridays and Saturdays, he went out and got drunk. On Tuesday mornings, he went to therapy.

Charles was actually so organised that sometimes he forgot why he even needed to go to therapy in the first place.

Charles actually enjoyed most sessions. He got along quite well with his psychologist, Hank, who was just the right mixture of professional and friendly. The sessions were held in a small room in the university teaching hospital, and no one ever asked Charles, assistant professor of the genetics department, why he visited the hospital so regularly.

"Is there something wrong?"

Charles' eyes snapped from where they were staring at the room's light switch back to meet Hank's.

"Oh, just zoning out," he replied, amicably, stifling the sense of panic in his chest. "I've been pretty tired this week."

He watched Hank purse his lips but otherwise not reply. Charles exhaled a breath.

"Why have you been so tired?" Hank asked, uncrossing and re-crossing his legs.

As Charles gave a summary of the past week's events, he couldn't help feel slightly guilty. Hank was a good person. Hank was safe. He trusted Hank. But that didn't mean he trusted all the psychiatrists who had access to his file, nor did he trust this room, which was most likely bugged with some sort of microphone by God-knows-whom. It was exhausting to be this vigilant, but he couldn't tell Hank anything beyond vague implications, which were dangerous enough as it was.

At the end of their hour-long session, Hank stood up and opened the door to let Charles out of the room, a weak smile on his lips.

"I wish I knew how to get you to trust me," Hank said, holding the door open.

"I trust you, Hank," Charles replied, with as much sincerity as he could muster. And then he left before he felt guilty enough to tell Hank exactly what was exhausting him and why he had to keep a firm eye on the room's light switch, among other things.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Tuesday 15th March_

 

 

Erik Lehnsherr hated therapy.

He hated all the graduate students fumbling around the reception area of the teaching hospital. He hated the passive aggressive smile of his therapist, Emma Frost. He especially hated sitting in the waiting room because he came fifteen minutes early for his appointment, forced to flick through the tedious real estate magazines while the clock ticked past.

After his mother passed away earlier that year and Erik had dealt with his emotions by taking a desk lamp to his asshole boss's computer screen, his friends had basically dragged him to see this psychologist, whom Azazel apparently knew personally. And by now he was trapped in weekly therapy sessions, without which he wouldn't be prescribed any medication, which was pretty vital for getting out of bed in the morning.

Erik hadn't always come to therapy on Tuesday mornings but, since starting work at a garage about a month ago, he'd decided to settle down on a regular session time.

Fortunately for Erik, Tuesday mornings did have their perks. At ten to nine exactly, a short brunet man with a gorgeous smile and a very unfortunate fashion sense always entered the waiting room and sat on the seat across from Erik, usually with a briefcase of paperwork to do before his session, which presumably started at nine.

Today, however, when the man entered, he didn't take out any busywork, and was merely content to cross his legs and sit, watching Erik with a curious expression. Erik refused to look up, and pretended to be really invested in the exorbitant prices of Manhattan apartments these days.

Three minutes later, the man was still staring at Erik. He could feel those blue eyes on him, digging into his skin like fishing hooks.

"Do you mind?" he demanded, finally giving in and looking up from his magazine.

The man blinked in surprise, before standing up and walking across the waiting room to Erik.

"I don't believe we've introduced ourselves yet," the man said, holding out his right hand as if he hadn't even heard Erik speak. "I'm Charles."

Erik stared at the hand, but didn't shake it.

"Erik," he said.

Charles continued to smile.

"The weather's been pretty awful this week, hasn't it?"

Erik tapped his fingers restlessly against his thigh.

"I guess," he said nervously.

Charles laughed airily.

"Why are you smiling so much?" Erik asked suddenly.

"What do you mean?" Charles asked, still fucking smiling.

"I mean," Erik said, feeling his voice getting lower despite himself. He clenched his fists in a vain attempt to stop himself from going down this slippery slope. "If you're the kind of person who comes... here, you shouldn't be smiling."

Charles coughed and flushed a subtle shade of pink.

"What kind of person comes here, then?" he asked, with a grin as if it was all a huge joke to him.

Erik blinked.

"Fuck you."

Charles stopped smiling and the world was finally quiet.

"I'm sorry?" Charles stammered, looking down at Erik with wide eyes.

"Fuck you," Erik repeated, his voice calm and steady.

"Erik?" Emma Frost's voice called from the waiting room doorway.

Without once glancing back at Charles, Erik stood up and left, his hands still in fists as though he was holding all his emotions in his hands and letting go would destroy the entire hospital.

 

* * *

 

"Who's that patient in the waiting room?" Erik asked the moment Emma and he had sat down.

"You know I can't tell you about any other patients who come here," Emma said sweetly.

"Well he's an asshole," Erik said. "And he's wasting his time coming here."

Emma cocked her head to one side.

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, he's obviously not..." Erik trailed off.

"Not what?"

"Not like me," Erik spat. "He doesn't belong here."

"Different people have different reasons for getting treatment," Emma said. "He might just have different problems to yours."

Erik scowled.

"He's wasting his time," he repeated.

Emma wrote something down on her clipboard.

"The world isn't split into healthy people and you," she said.

Erik just glared out the window.

 

* * *

 

"Are you alright, Charles?"

"I met someone in your waiting room today," Charles replied, tugging at the sleeves of his cardigan. "I don't think he likes me."

"What makes you say that?" Hank asked, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

"He was mad at me for smiling," Charles said, frowning. "I don't understand. No one has ever been mad at me for smiling before. It seems a strange thing to be upset about."

Hank chewed on his pen thoughtfully, as he was wont to do.

"How does his anger make you feel?"

Charles bit his lip and watched a garbage disposal van drive slowly down the street outside.

"I don't know."

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Tuesday 22nd March_

 

 

It had been a bad week for Charles. He'd been doing lab practicals with the undergraduates but, for the life of him, he could not get them to understand the correct method of extracting DNA for their course. On top of that, he had received a stern talking-to from the head of department for the apparent tardiness of his test papers, despite the fact that he had been promised an extra week to get them marked.

When, on Monday night, Charles finally had had a free night and a full eight hours in which to sleep, he had closed his eyes to the soft mechanical buzzing of surveillance equipment and the ticklish feeling of ants crawling up his limbs.

So, upon showing up to Hank's waiting room on Tuesday morning with a large cup of coffee and some pretty ugly looking red scratch marks on his hands and legs, the last thing he wanted to see was Erik, already sitting comfortably in the waiting room and looking up as Charles walked in.

Charles crossed the room and sat down at his usual seat, sipping at his coffee and trying to avoid another confrontation.

"What's wrong with your hands?"

Charles looked up at Erik, who was looking intently back at him with an inscrutable expression, and sniffed.

"I have an enthusiastic cat," Charles replied automatically.

Erik snorted, which gave Charles the unexpected urge to throw his scalding hot coffee into the awful man's face.

"You really shouldn't do that," Erik said unexpectedly, and for a moment Charles thought he was talking about throwing coffee, instead of the scratches.

"It's not any of your business," Charles replied coldly, taking another sip of his coffee. "You don't have a monopoly on self-destructive behaviour."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Erik replied, indignantly.

"Well, it's not like picking fights with random strangers is very productive behaviour, is it?" Charles said, surprised at his own sarcasm.

"I don't want to fight you, Charles," Erik said.

Charles raised an eyebrow.

"Alright then," he replied, in the most scathing voice he could, before finishing the last of his coffee in one gulp.

 

* * *

 

"Charles hates me."

Emma frowned.

"Is that the man from the waiting room?" she asked.

Erik nodded, unable to stop his right leg from jiggling.

"Why do you think he hates you?" Emma asked, clicking her pen once.

"Because I'm a fucking asshole who can't control his temper," Erik said, now crossing his arms and tapping his left hand against his right elbow.

Unfortunately, this happened pretty often. After several weeks of his typical furious glares and straight-up confrontations, Erik would suddenly remember what a terrible person he was and how much everyone hated him and how his entire life was a fucking wreck and it was all his fault. This phase would only usually last a few days to a week tops, but it felt like an eternity.

Emma smiled lightly.

"Hate is a pretty strong word," she said, diplomatically. Then, when Erik didn't reply, she sighed, and asked: "do you think you might be splitting?"

Erik shot a furtive glance at his therapist.

"No," he said, petulantly.

Emma sighed again.

"If you're very worried about this Charles guy, why don't you try apologising and talking to him next week?"

Erik narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but his leg stopped jiggling.

 

* * *

 

"I've had a pretty awful week," Charles told Hank, pulling down the sleeves of his sweater so they covered most of his hands.

"Anxiety?" Hank asked, making a note of this on his notepad.

Charles nodded. It wasn't really a lie anyway. Insect infestations in one's own bed tended to make one quite anxious.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Hank said. "What happened?"

As Charles recounted his woes of the past week, most of them work-related, he found his mind wandering to the conversation he had just had with Erik from the waiting room.

"Hank?" he asked, suddenly, the moment he had finished his anecdote about a particularly troublesome student. "Do you think I'm a bad person?"

"No," Hank replied without a hesitation, which didn't mean anything. It was sort of his job to say that. "Do _you_ think you're a bad person?"

Charles chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully.

"I was rather rude to Erik from the waiting room earlier," he confessed.

"Didn't you two have a... um, conflict last week?" Hank asked.

Charles chuckled half-heartedly.

"One should never fight fire with fire," he told Hank.

"Do you feel guilty?" Hank asked.

Charles cocked his head.

"I think so."

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Saturday 26th March_

 

 

Erik hated parties. But he hated being berated by his friends for being an asocial loser even more. When Azazel and Logan had told him that this was a 23rd birthday party at the country house of some lab technician Azazel knew from work, Erik's primary concern was seeing Emma Frost there. He couldn't imagine a more awkward situation, except, perhaps, becoming reacquainted with the ex-boss whose computer he'd totally wrecked before screaming his resignation to the entire office.

Azazel pulled his car up to the driveway to this house, which was somewhere about half an hour outside the city and absolutely massive. Like, British high-aristocracy on ITV Drama massive. What a fucking relief. There must be about a hundred rooms in which Erik could hide to avoid social interaction.

"You said she was a lab technician!" said Logan, shoving Azazel playfully, as the three of them walked up the gravelled driveway and towards the loud thumping music.

"She is," Azazel insisted. "I guess she's just super loaded too?"

Erik snorted.

"You drinking tonight, Erik?" Azazel asked.

Erik shook his head.

Azazel smiled with relief.

"Ah, thank fuck," he said. "There is no way I could drive us home."

And they opened the door to a blast of music and a pretty blonde woman standing in the doorway with a red cup and a saucy grin.

"Azazel!" she exclaimed, holding her arms out for a hug. "You made it!"

Erik smirked, watching his usually touch-averse friend embrace this blonde stranger.

"Hi," the stranger said to Erik, after she'd broken the hug with Azazel. "I'm Raven."

"Happy birthday, Raven," Erik said, politely. "I'm Erik, and this is Logan."

"You have good bone structure," Raven informed Erik, very serious and very drunk.

"Uh, thanks," Erik replied. "But I'm not-"

"Oh no!" Raven interrupted with a gleeful laugh. "Not for... I'm not..."

She dissolved into a fit of giggles.

Erik looked at Azazel in confusion.

"Alright, Raven," Azazel said, putting a firm hand on Raven's shoulder. "Let's get you some water."

"And me some beer, please," Logan added, following the two of them through the crowd of people into the house.

Erik was probably supposed to have followed them, but it was just so easy to weave through the miscellaneous drunk, dancing people to the bottom of the stairs of this ridiculously big house. Perhaps there was some sort of memo about not going up the stairs, because, despite the crush of partiers in the front hall, no one was even standing on the first step. Erik picked up an empty bottle of beer that had been tossed to the ground, and walked up to the sixth step, where he sat down.

It was kind of surreal, being four feet away from the party and yet be completely alone. Erik liked this a lot.

After about a quarter of an hour, however, he was beginning to get a bit bored. He had probably been spotted by a good number of people, enough witnesses to testify that he was actually at the party and not hiding and smoking in the bushes outside, like one memorable New Year's, so Erik decided to snoop.

He glanced around the hall to see if Raven was there and, when he couldn't spot her blonde hair, he quickly snuck up the stairs to the first floor.

The music still vibrating the floor rhythmically in the background, Erik opened each door of this seemingly endless corridor and peered inside. Bathroom, study, guest bedroom, guest bedroom, bathroom, some sort of mini living room?, guest bedroom...

After checking every room on this first floor corridor, Erik glanced at his watch. He'd only wasted half an hour. Logan couldn't even be tipsy yet. Erik sighed, and climbed the stairs to the second floor.

This floor proved to be a lot more interesting. In fact, the first door that Erik opened led to a small, dusty bedroom with a half-made bed and some grungey-looking band posters on the wall, probably Raven's room as a teenager. Intrigued, Erik walked in, only feeling slightly guilty about nosing into this random girl's home, on her birthday no less.

The bookshelf on the left wall was made up almost entirely of biology textbooks and terrible-looking crime fiction novels that looked like they belonged in an airport bookstore. Erik wrinkled his nose at Raven's taste, and turned his attention to the desk, situated in front of the room's only window. On the desk, there was a closed laptop and a half-empty glass of water, as well as a propped-up picture frame of two teenagers sitting on the side of a park fountain and smiling.

Erik picked up the picture. The teenager on the left was obviously Raven, with similar long blonde hair and the same mischievous grin, and the brunet on the right must have been her brother or a close friend. Erik peered at the photograph more closely. There was something familiar about that face. Had Erik seen him earlier, maybe at the party?

There was a sound of someone clearing their throat from the doorway.

Erik jumped, and quickly replaced the picture frame, before spinning around, prepared to explain himself to either Raven or some horny couple coming up for a drunken quickie. Nothing, however, would have prepared him for this.

"Erik?" asked Charles from the waiting room, crossing his arms and staring at Erik with an expression of shock and outrage. "What the hell are you doing in my room?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the party cont.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS FOR: exactly the same stuff as last chapter

 

 

 

 

 

 

"What the hell are you doing in my room?"

"I was just coming up to get away from the party," Erik explained, holding his hands up defensively. Then, realising that he probably should have said this sooner, "sorry."

 

* * *

 

 _This is it,_ Charles thought to himself. _There is no way I can pretend to be normal now if I'm hallucinating Erik-from-the-waiting-room standing in my childhood bedroom._

Charles placed his now-empty red cup of cider on the bookshelf and laughed.

 

* * *

 

Erik shifted his weight nervously as he waited for Charles' laughter to die down. When Charles finally shut up, Erik resisted the urge to check his watch.

"So, you actually _live_ here?" Erik asked, trying to distract Charles from either throwing him out of the house- where it would be cold and very obviously asocial- or, even worse, laughing again.

However, Charles didn't reply. Instead, he pursed his lips suspiciously at Erik, before walking around the bedroom to fiddle with various items. First, he tugged at the white box surrounding the room's light switch, before moving to the desk to flip his laptop upside-down, revealing an empty back, where a battery must have been removed by a screwdriver.

"Wha-" Erik started, before Charles gave him a sharp look that quickly staunched the rest of his question.

Finally, Charles closed the window's blinds and then closed his eyes, murmuring something that looked like a prayer. Erik tried not to stare, and instead fixed his gaze intently on the bookshelf on the other side of the room. For a plan that was supposed to avoid awkward social interaction, going upstairs had failed Erik greatly.

"You're really lucky, you know?"

Erik's eyes reverted back to Charles, who was now sitting down on the desk chair and looking up at Erik.

"What do you mean?" Erik snapped. He'd heard that expression far too many times to trust its validity or use.

"I mean," Charles said, and Erik suddenly noticed how clipped and British his accent was. "You're really lucky I'm almost totally smashed right now because otherwise this could have ended really messily."

"It could still end messily," Erik pointed out, more to be contrary than anything, but he sat down on the edge of Charles' bed anyway.

Charles chuckled.

"My friend, I'm not _that_ wasted."

There was a weird buzzing silence between Erik's shock at being referred to as "my friend" and his realisation that Charles had just made a joke.

He smiled, and Charles smiled back.

"I'm really sorry I came into your room," Erik said, as Charles stood up to fetch his red cup from the bookshelf. "It was a breach of privacy. I can leave if you want me to..."

He looked expectantly at Charles, who was now removing a small silver flask from his cardigan's pocket and was pouring its clear contents into the cup.

"Oh no," Charles said graciously. "The worst is over; the deed is done; all of that, you know... Would you like some vodka?"

"No thanks," Erik said.

Charles raised an eyebrow.

"I don't drink," Erik elaborated. Then, after clearing his throat, "meds."

Charles nodded knowingly.

"I don't meds," he said, nonsensically and held the red cup in the air. "Drink."

Charles then took a great gulp of the vodka. Erik felt slightly aghast. It must have registered on his face because he heard Charles laugh.

"That's not healthy," Erik said, frowning.

Charles just laughed harder.

" _Verfickt nochmal_ , do you ever stop laughing?" Erik demanded.

Charles fell silent and Erik was suddenly hit with guilt.

"Erik," Charles said slowly, tracing the rim of his cup with his left index finger. "There is more to life, and to you for that matter, than just pain and anger. You know that, right?"

Part of Erik acknowledged the small bite of sarcasm in that statement, but the rest of him was more overwhelmed by Charles' pity that he barely even registered the words themselves. Charles pitied Erik. He felt bad for him.

Erik suddenly saw himself how Charles must see him: a bitter, bad-tempered loser with a cramped apartment in a bad neighbourhood, who didn't have room for a sense of humour due to all the anger issues blotting out his brain. He wanted to fight this perception, to literally punch Charles in the face and _distract them both from the ugly truth of Erik_.

"Are you alright?" Charles asked in a small voice.

Erik hadn't even realised he had closed his eyes, hunching his shoulders in a defensive position that couldn't be good for his posture after all these years of doing it.

Then, suddenly, he felt a warm presence on his right hand. He looked over and saw Charles leaning forward with his hand hovering gently over Erik's clenched fist. Erik blinked, and then focussed on relaxing his fingers and letting his fist unfurl until it was flat on the blanket next to him. Charles' hand was still on his. He noticed that the scratch marks on Charles' hand had faded and something akin to relief settled in the base of his spine. He looked up at Charles and noticed that the man was smiling tenderly at Erik.

"Feeling okay?" Charles asked.

Erik swallowed.

"Yeah," he said, hoarsely, and it wasn't even a lie.

There was a sudden change of temperature as Charles removed his hand from Erik's, before, in a blur of dark blue maurino wool, he was suddenly sitting next to Erik on the bed, his right leg pressed against Erik's left.

"Erik," he said, conversationally, as if a whole week had passed since four seconds ago. "I'm terribly sorry about being so rude to you on Tuesday. I had had an awful week and I took it out on you. I'm very sorry."

Erik blinked.

"I'm sorry for swearing at you the first time we talked," he said, avoiding Charles' eye contact like it was the sun. "And I'm sorry for bugging you when you were in a bad mood. And I'm sorry again for just showing up in your room."

Charles beamed.

"Well, it's not really my room anymore," he told Erik with a conspiratorial wink. "This is just Raven's and my parents' old house that we use for our wild parties and such.  However, if you had broken into my city apartment, I might not have been so lenient."

Erik's lips twitched.

Charles leaned in close to Erik and for one wild, ridiculous moment Erik imagined that he was leaning in for a kiss.

"Can I tell you a secret, my friend?" Charles whispered, his face just inches from Erik's. Erik could smell that clean, sharp smell of vodka on Charles' breath.

"Sure."

"You're the only person in this whole house who knows where I go every Tuesday morning."

Erik's eyebrows shot up.

"Seriously?"

Charles grinned and nodded, causing his forehead to bump against Erik's a few times.

"Not even Raven?"

"Not even Raven!" Charles replied, almost gleefully.

"You shouldn't be embarrassed about it," Erik said, almost angrily. "You shouldn't have to hide."

Charles smiled almost sadly.

"I've become rather good at hiding these days," he said, rather cryptically.

Erik wasn't sure how to reply to that.

"Erik?"

"Yeah?"

"It's your turn."

"My turn for what?"

"You have to tell me a secret now," Charles said, rolling his eyes and smiling.

Erik hated how he couldn't help but smile back.

"Alright," he said, with a devious smile. "I smashed up my boss's office in January."

Charles' eyes widened.

"What happened?" he asked.

"My boss was always a dick. But then he wanted me to work on the day of my mother's funeral and threatened to fire me if I skipped out. He kept talking about numbers and hours and how his spreadsheet couldn't handle my absence. So I picked up his desk lamp and threw it at his stupid spreadsheet."

Despite being probably the most mentally unstable moment of Erik's life, it had felt really fucking good.

Charles, however, did not seem to find this anecdote as vindicating as Erik did.

"I'm sorry about your mother. But there were probably-" he waved his hand vaguely- "legal things you could have done, you know," he informed Erik with a pout.

Erik had heard this from far too many friends and therapists for it to affect him now, so he merely shrugged his shoulders.

"Your turn."

Charles grinned.

"Yours didn't count," he said, petulantly. "It doesn't count as a secret if someone else already knows."

Erik grimaced.

" _But_ ," Charles said quickly. "I shall make an exception for you this one time."

"You seem to be doing that a lot tonight," Erik pointed out with a smirk.

Charles waggled his eyebrows, causing Erik to groan and Charles to burst into laughter at himself.

"Alright, alright," Charles said, still smiling. "Are you ready for my second secret?"

"Sure," Erik said, very soberly. He didn't have anything else to do.

Charles flashed Erik a wicked grin, before leaning in and whispering into Erik's ear something very ticklish and incoherent. Charles then leaned back and bit his bottom lip as he waited for Erik's response.

"I'm sorry," Erik said. "I have no idea what you just said."

Charles laughed and leaned in again to whisper the secret into Erik's ear, just as incoherently and even more giggly than the last time.

Erik rolled his eyes.

"Just say it out loud," he complained.

"What if I showed you instead?" Charles asked.

"I guess," Erik replied. Maybe this had something to do with the weird battery-less laptop on Charles' desk.

This theory, however, proved incorrect the moment Charles' lips touched Erik's in a soft, wet kiss.

"Is this alright?" Charles murmured, pulling back for a second.

Erik nodded mutely, before reaching to run his fingers through Charles' hair as they kissed again, deeper and dirtier this time.

"So, uh, what was that secret again?" Erik asked, panting, after they had pulled apart, lips wet and swollen.

"It was that I think you're cute when you're happy," Charles said with a soft smile.

"What about when I'm angry?" Erik demanded indignantly.

"Then, I think you're hot," Charles said, as he leaned in again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Tuesday 29th March_

 

 

"You seem in a better mood this week," Hank commented, after Charles had regaled a funny story about Raven's post-birthday hangover.

"Do I?" Charles asked nonchalantly, a light blush settling on his cheeks. "Well, I suppose I am in a better mood."

Hank wrote down something on his notepad. Charles didn't even crane his neck to look at what he was writing this time.

 

* * *

 

"I think your mood might be improving," Emma said, writing something on the top left corner of her clipboard.

"Don't let it go to your head," Erik replied, easily. "It's because I've got a date at five past ten today."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [give me all them mental illness headcanons at my tumblr](http://www.paranoidsteve.tumblr.com/)


End file.
